A presidential election, murder, an international beauty contest --- it's the stuff of daytime TV. Yet, it's all happening right before our eyes. Are we living in a real life soap opera?
Who better to weigh in than a real soap opera writer?
"In fact, we have a soap opera writer --- Ellen," Glenn said Thursday on his radio program.
Ellen Wheeler, Head of Content at Mercury Radio Arts, also happens to be an Emmy-award-winning actress and former writer for Guiding Light.
"Imagine if I come to you and I say, Okay, all right, so far we've done all the things that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have done. These are the characters. Now, we're going to have her bring up a Miss Universe that he called Miss Piggy, and we're going to smear her. But what they don't know is that in Venezuela she drove the getaway car in a murder," Glenn said.
With experience on two major daytime TV shows that included playing evil twins, Ellen shared her unique perspective.
"It's always been one of my favorite things when real life trumps -- ha ha -- trumps what you could write in a soap opera, and people would say, You can't write that story line. That is too outrageous," she said.
Could Ellen have gotten away with writing the storyline in As the Election Turns?
"People would have beat me up for writing a story like that," she admitted.
Read below or watch the clip for answers to these overly dramatic questions:
• Did Anderson Cooper get Alicia Machado to admit to being accessory to murder?
• How proficient is Alicia Machado's English?
• How famous is Alicia Machado in Venezuela and Mexico?
• Does Alicia Machado have a past?
• Does anyone really care about this?
Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:
GLENN: Here's the problem: Is there anyone in this story -- when I heard the Anderson Cooper interview with Miss Universe, honestly, you could -- soap opera writers would look at what's happening, and they would mock this. They would say, "Okay. Come on."
In fact, we have a soap opera writer, Ellen, is this -- is this soap opera of the last year and all of the things that are going on -- imagine if I come to you and I say, "Okay. All right. So far we've done all the things that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have done. Okay. These are the characters. Now, we're going to have her bring up a Miss Universe that he called Miss Piggy, and we're going to smear her. But what they don't know is that in Venezuela she drove the getaway car in a murder."
ELLEN: It's always been one of my favorite things when real life trumps -- ha ha -- trumps what you could write in a soap opera, and people would say, "You can't write that story line. That is too outrageous."
GLENN: So you know, Ellen is an Emmy-award-winning actress. And wrote -- did you just write Guiding Light?
ELLEN: Guiding Light.
GLENN: Okay. And she was on -- I know just.
She wrote every episode of like -- for three years. And she was on Bold & Beautiful and everything else.
ELLEN: So there's no story I can't make up.
GLENN: And you played an evil twin.
ELLEN: I've played an evil twin twice. Three times, if you count real life, right? Three times if you count my own marriage.
But --
GLENN: Wait. There might be something to delve into on some point on that.
ELLEN: But I do think it's fun when life is bigger than the weird art that you could create. And people would have beat me up for writing a story like that.
GLENN: Right. They would say no way anybody would believe this.
ELLEN: Yeah.
GLENN: No way. The only thing that we haven't seen so far is an evil twin. That's the only thing. Or -- oh, my gosh. Oh, maybe, wait, wait, wait. Maybe Zuckerberg is right. We're in the Matrix. Oh, please let this be a dream. Please let me wake up in the shower. Please let this be a dream, like it was in Dallas.
JEFFY: But we have kind of seen the twin, right? With the Hillary double.
PAT: Yes. We kind of have.
GLENN: Yes, we have. So we only have the dream sequence left. And that ends happy.
PAT: So this was Miss Universe. Which that is a little bit presumptuous of us, right?
GLENN: Can we downgrade her to at least Miss Galaxy?
PAT: At least Solar System. We know she's maybe the most beautiful in the solar system. We have no idea about galaxy or solar system.
GLENN: Right. Right. And who are we to judge?
PAT: But here's the Anderson Cooper clip.
ANDERSON: You said that, you know, the Trump campaign will try to discredit you. There are reports that Trump surrogates tonight have been referencing and pointing to on CNN and elsewhere about an incident in 1998 in Venezuela where you were accused of driving a getaway car from a murder scene. You were never charged with this. The judge in this case also said you had threatened to kill him after he indicted your boyfriend for the attempted murder. I just want to give you a chance to address these reporters that the Trump surrogates are talked about.
GLENN: Okay. Stop. Now, you're watching this, and you're thinking to yourself, there's no way this can be true.
PAT: Right. You're thinking, she's going to say, "Absolutely not."
GLENN: Right. There's no way this can be true.
PAT: The Trump people are making that up.
GLENN: Because Hillary would never pin her hopes on a Miss Universe thing who, oh, by the way, also assisted in a murder. Right?
PAT: Right.
GLENN: Here's her answer.
ALICIA: He can say whatever he wants to say. I don't care. You know, I have my past. Of course, everybody has --
PAT: You have a past.
ALICIA: Everybody have a past.
PAT: Oh. Yeah, but not everybody has participated in a murder for a past.
GLENN: No, wait. Wait. Wait. And so far, I'm still believing her. When I'm watching this, I'm still going, okay. Maybe she's just saying -- he's just --
PAT: I'm not. At that point?
GLENN: I'm thinking, he can say whatever he wants. He's just making this up. She's going to come back and say, "That's ridiculous." But you know Donald, he says whatever he wants to. He believed the National Enquirer. I thought that's where she was going at this point.
ALICIA: I'm no saint girl.
PAT: She's not a saint girl.
GLENN: Saint girl.
PAT: I'm not a saint girl.
GLENN: So when I heard that I thought, "Well, let's see, Mother Teresa is technically a saint, and she didn't murder anyone, that we know of."
PAT: She set the bar way too high.
GLENN: Right.
PAT: By not murdering somebody. Come on, we can't all do that. We can't all do that.
(laughter)
GLENN: I'm not a saint. No, I think you understand the definition of the word "saint."
STU: I mean, I think obviously this plays to whether this is going to be an effective campaign for Hillary Clinton.
PAT: It's not.
STU: Does anyone think -- does it make it okay to call a Venezuelan woman Miss Housekeeping because, in the future, she might commit a crime, or she might do porn in the future, after the incident where you call her Miss Housekeeping?
GLENN: Yeah, no. So here's the thing: The trouble with this is there's no good guys in this soap opera. There's nobody. I mean, no soap opera lasts when you don't have somebody that you're rooting for, somebody that you like. Where the best character in this is a Tony Soprano.
JEFFY: Yeah, maybe.
GLENN: So you kind of -- after you kind of feel dirty. When you're like, I'm not entirely comfortable with rooting for Tony Soprano. Oh, yeah, but it's fun.
This eventually isn't fun. And you're just left with that dirty feeling of rooting for Tony Soprano. At some point -- I mean, honestly, think of all the people surrounding both Trump and Clinton.
Do you have friends like those guys do?
You know, yeah, I want you to meet Sandy. He went into the national archives and was smuggling things out of his underpants, but he's cool. Oh, this is Miss Universe. And Donald Trump was calling her Miss Piggy, and she assisted in a murder. But she's great. You don't have these kinds of friends on either side.
Oh, this is -- I want you to meet my -- my new CEO. He -- he's a big fan of, you know, the neo-Nazi movement. He's helping rebrand that whole thing right now.
(laughter)
PAT: Well, if there's anybody who needs re-branding, it's the neo-Nazis.
GLENN: The Neo-Nazis. Skinheads.
PAT: They don't have a good PR firm.
GLENN: Yes, they do. It's called Breitbart.
(laughter)
JEFFY: Chelsea opened the door for Trump to be able to respond next time though, right? I mean, because she responded saying that, "Oh, it's just a distraction from his inability to talk about what's actually at stake in this election."
PAT: Oh, that's --
JEFFY: So now Donald can say, "I'm fighting back. I'm punching back."
ANDERSON: You said that, you know, the Trump campaign will try to discredit you. There are reports that Trump surrogates tonight have been referencing and pointing to on CNN and elsewhere about an incident in 1998 in Venezuela where you were accused of driving a getaway car from a murder scene. You were never charged with this. The judge in the case also said you had threatened to kill him after he indicted your boyfriend for the attempted murder. I just want to give you a chance to address these reports that the Trump surrogates are talking about.
ALICIA: He can say whatever he wants to say. I don't care. You know, I have my past. Of course, everybody has. Everybody have a past.
GLENN: Murder and threatening judges.
ALICIA: And I'm -- a saint girl.
GLENN: You're no saint girl?
ALICIA: But that is not the point now.
PAT: Hmm. Uh-huh.
ALICIA: That moment in Venezuela --
GLENN: Uh-huh.
ALICIA: -- was wrong.
GLENN: Wrong.
ALICIA: Was another speculation about my life.
GLENN: Hold it.
ALICIA: Because I'm a really famous person in my country.
GLENN: Wait. Stop. Stop. She is denying it
PAT: She's essentially admitting it.
JEFFY: No, I think it's the other way.
STU: She's saying that moment was wrong. There was a lot of speculation.
PAT: It sounds like she's saying it was wrong of her to do that.
STU: I think she has a tenuous grasp on the English language.
JEFFY: Yes.
PAT: Well, that's clear.
STU: She says that moment -- that was wrong, and there was a lot of speculation.
GLENN: Okay. I thought she was saying that moment, like me driving the getaway car.
PAT: That's what I thought she was saying.
GLENN: Oh, okay.
STU: Right. Right.
ALICIA: Because I'm an actress there and in Mexico too.
JEFFY: Wait. What?
GLENN: I'm an actress.
JEFFY: Yeah, I haven't seen those videos.
ALICIA: He can use whatever he wants to use.
The point is, that happened 20 years ago.
GLENN: Stop.
STU: They're not real though.
PAT: She's admitting it. That happened 20 years ago.
GLENN: That happened 20 years ago.
PAT: Something happened, and she was a part of it.
STU: By the way, so is the reason you're on Anderson Cooper. That also happened 20 years ago.
GLENN: Yeah, I know.
STU: Is a little less important than a murder investigation.
GLENN: Murder. Yeah.
Wait. Wait. Wait. So she's accused of driving the getaway car for her boyfriend who murdered somebody, and then threatening the judge that I'm going to kill you. I think that's kind of an important thing to decide whether -- I mean, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump calling her Miss Piggy. And Miss Housekeeper, Housekeeping is worse.
STU: But isn't this --
GLENN: Maybe, maybe, I don't know.
STU: Isn't this Hillary Clinton just using a play from Donald Trump's playbook?
You can call Ted Cruz's dad the murderer of JFK. Everyone starts talking about it. You direct the conversation to that for a few days. And the fact that in the end, that you're completely wrong, what does that even matter? The point is, she got 84 million people to hear him calling a woman -- a Venezuelan, Miss Housekeeping. The fact that she has issues later on -- two and three days later -- when they fact-check it on Anderson Cooper is meaningless. I mean, this is the same tactic he's been using the entire campaign. And she's using it too. That's where we are in 2016.
GLENN: We are as what's his name, Yiannopoulos, or whatever his name is -- we are in a post-fact period.
Featured Image: Actress Alicia Machado speaks onstage during the NALIP 2016 Latino Media Awards at Dolby Theatre on June 25, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for NALIP)
